Hülkenberg happy with initial Force India pace in Singapore

Nico Hülkenberg felt his Sahara Force India team did a lot of work towards race set-up for the Singapore Grand Prix on Friday, and was also positive about the one-lap pace of the VJM09.

The German finished down in thirteenth position in the opening practice but was a promising sixth in the second, just 1.030 seconds behind the pace set by Nico Rosberg, and although remaining calm about the rest of the weekend, is confident of a strong performance, especially when the team turn their focus on qualifying on Saturday.

“It’s a good starting point for our weekend: we stuck to our plan, completed all our runs and got plenty of learning out of the laps we did,” said Hülkenberg.

“There’s still some work to do to be fully happy with the car, but we looked quite competitive. We are still trying to understand where we stand in terms of long run pace, but the first impression is that our one-lap pace looks good.

“Most teams usually take a big step forward between Friday and Saturday, so we are not getting carried away. We’ve done some good preparation work ahead of the race, which means tomorrow morning we can move on and switch our focus to qualifying.”